With rumours swirling around of Techland having cancelled games internally, the studio has now released a statement that, while not outright confirming the cancellations, at least didn’t deny them. In a statement to GamesRadar, Techland’s PR made a statement about it plans for the projects getting changed, and the developers working on those projects had instead been moved to other projects.
In its statement, the studio also said that none of these cancellations resulted in any developer getting laid off from the studio.
“Game development is never a straight line, and sometimes fresh approaches are necessary to make great games,” reads Techland’s statement. “What’s important here is that none of the reported changes have resulted in staff reductions. Developers were moved to other projects and are working on a number of games in our pipeline.”
“Our primary focus right now is to release Dying Light: The Beast for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. After the launch of Dying Light: The Beast, we will share more about future titles in due time.”
For context, of the two cancelled games, as reported by Polish outlet Puls Biznesu, one was likely the open-world fantasy RPG that the studio had announced back in 2022. While not too many details about the game were revealed at the time, the company had confirmed that the project was being helmed by Karolina Stachyra and Arkadiusz Borowik – development veterans that have previously worked on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
Back in June, Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała had spoken about how the studio sees Dying Light: The Beast as a proper third game in the franchise rather than being just a spin-off. He also spoke about how, with Dying Light 2 Stay Human, the studio had lost some of what made the original Dying Light special.
“With [Dying Light 1], we really managed to create a game where every piece fit together, and maybe we didn’t appreciate it enough,” Smektała said.
“Dying Light 1 was a game for our core community. It was a hardcore survival horror, open world, action adventure with very strong survival aspects. For Dying Light 2, we forgot about it. The game was a commercial success, but the players who should be closest to our hearts said we kind of lost the edge, we lost the threat, we lost the horror, we lost the tension.”
“For us, it really is Dying Light 3,” he continued later in the interview. “Maybe the project started with a slightly smaller ambition, but we got so excited about Kyle Crane returning. We got so excited about, actually, what we can do with this new iteration of the engine, how confident we feel about the gameplay mechanics.”
He has also spoke about how Dying Light: The Beast will have hints regarding the future of the franchise, while also giving us a look at the aftermath of the original Dying Light and its The Following DLC.
Dying Light: The Beast is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S on August 22.